Op-Ed: Trump’s State of the Union – ‘America is Back’. Back where?  

US President Donald Trump stands and applauds as he concludes his address to a joint session of Congress – Copyright AFP/File Tierney L CROSS

There might, just possibly, due to statistical probabilities, be someone on Earth less able to describe the state of America than Trump. “America is Back” as a hook line simply invites sarcasm.

“Back where? The caves?” springs to mind.

The sheer number and scale of inaccuracies in the speech was epic. Most of the falsehoods were to justify policies. Others were simply cheering for the policies. None of the policies are working, but what’s new?

Fearlessly agreeing with himself throughout, the speech was entirely predictable. It was more of a party political than a State of the Union address. It was also the longest address to Congress on record.

Notably absent was any reference whatsoever to poverty and the other major disasters affecting human reality in the US. The world is slamming the trade doors on America, which is evidently also not a subject.

The White House website posted glowing reviews of Trump’s “master class” address.

What was the point of this address to Congress? There wasn’t anything in it that hadn’t been repeated ad nauseam elsewhere.

YouGov polls show the usual soggy split of approval and disapproval. Whether or not most Americans actually understand the issues at all is debatable. Opinions seem to be on autopilot.

In effect, the address to Congress was a purely self-serving cosmetic exercise. “Hooray for us” was the main message. Pure insularity was the motif. Fawning on DOGE, Trump and right-wing media ignored the tonnage of big issues on the cuts and the very questionable figures DOGE keeps producing.

A court recently barred DOGE from altering Treasury records of payments. Why would you need to alter records at all if you’re right in your allegations?  

This follows monotonous constant allegations of rampant fraud in Social Security, including the bizarre allegations that some recipients are 360 years old. The predictions are for massive cuts to Social Security administration and Veterans Affairs.

I’ll keep it simple.

This is not how to oversee anything in government on any level. You couldn’t run a hot dog stand like this. A bit of extremely basic bookkeeping would have discovered any such fraud at least a decade ago.

Every subject mentioned in the speech has resulted in massive negativity and hostility from other countries and the public. In six months, America will know what sort of state it’s in without the verbiage.

The word is “senility”.